i'm not sure you're going to get 2% or 3%. you're either going to get nothing, a little bit, or a lot worse. what we're doing in this environment, and we did raise a little bit of cash the last couple of weeks just so have some, but focus again back on earnings. earnings are pretty good. earnings running at 5% or so. a little better than expected. i think those are encouraging signs. then you go back to the themes. ly you go to housing, auto, auto parts. you go to the industrials. and particularly, the industrials, those stocks have done really well. go after cummings. go after utx. go after ingersoll grant. find the companies you want that reported good earnings, and that's where you go. >> doc, you've been among the more cautious traders we've had on the show the last several weeks. is this the kind of moment that you had feared, for lack of a better word, that would come in, or do you see this ss an opportunity to put some things to work on the list that you

keep. >> i'm still worried about exactly what josh and stephanie and simon talked about as far as the sequestration and when that hits march 1st, if we don't avoid it. so where i thought we would see volatility pick up was midmonth, and we're coming into that right now. as we move towards the middle of the month -- in other words, is 14 vix high? no, it's not. by any measure, a vix of 14 is not high. i would anticipate it pushes more towards 18, perhaps even 20. and depending on the rhetoric, if the rhetoric is benign, if it's not that they're attacking each other, both parties on the president, then i think vix comes right back down to here and back down to 12. >> so the consensus is the rhetoric will not be benign, and we do go into sequestration. that's the wide consensus. if that happens, we're talking about 1.5% off gdp and a positive print. i don't see the stock market acting like they're shocked if

we do. it's not a great thing, but i don't foresee people running with their hair on fire over what we're already talking about as consensus. >> let's get to the other top story. that is david versus goliath, literally. it's not often a big investor takes on the most powerful company on earth, but that's what greenlight's david einhorn is doing. einhorn is suing apple and asking for a proxy proposal that would limit apple's ability to issue preferred stock. he says apple is not doing enough with the cash hoard that has now topped $130 billion. >> apple that's a cash problem. it has sort of the mentality of a depression. in other words, people who have gone through traumas, they sometimes -- and apple has gone through a couple of traumas in its history -- they sometimes feel as if they can never have enough cash. >> josh brown, your take on what einhorn is doing? it's an uphill climb, perhaps at this point? >> it's definitely uphill, but

he's expressing what almost every shareholder on the institutional side, on the retail side, is either thinking or expressing himself. he's essentially putting himself at the vanguard of this rumbling that's about to get much louder. the thing is, when you look at the shareholder makeup of apple, he's got an uphill fight because these are mutual funds that don't ever vote on any proxies, let alone go against the company. they throw these things out in the garbage. you've got to round up a lot of support to make something happen with a company that big. >> let's see if it's something our next guest thinks is healthy. walter joins us. welcome back to halftime. nice to see you again. >> thanks for having me. >> what's your take on this einhorn move? >> i think david is looking for a more tax efficient way to get cash back to the shareholders. another way is for the company to issue dividends or maybe even repurchase shares to try to drive growth. the thing that no one is talking about right now is that earnings growth was 60% last year, and the consensus estimate now implies about 1.5% growth.

maybe what they should be doing with that cash is reinvesting to try to get growth back. >> it raises the interesting question. at the end of the day, this all boils down to they're sitting on $130 billion in cash. one-third of the market cap is sitting in cash. they need to do something, were it's an acquisition, a buy back, an increase of the dividend. when do we get a move, and why haven't we gotten it yet? is it pure arrogance? what is it? >> the slowdown in earnings growth may be as much of a surprise to them as it is to investors. stock is so off on that slowdown in earnings growth. if you're going to make a large acquisition to restimulate growth, it takes time to figure out what that's going to be because large acquisitions are always tough to do and to integrate. they may go out and negotiate that deal. it could be something like that where they want to look at their options for reinvigorating growth, and if they can't find anything and go back to being a no growth company, look at

dividends or share repurchase if it's preferred stock. in david's point, why restrict your options and eliminate the preferred stock? again, the easier method, the less complex method would be can gentlemaning up the dividend. >> why not be a buyer of apple here? you have a neutral rating on the stock. what's really going on here? >> every time i've been on here from varying price points, yes, it is a cheap stock. the earnings estimates have come in significantly, about $10 from their peak. you could argue it's a cheap stock. you're downsize limited. but what they have now, they face a margin issue where, to a certain extent, they've saturated a market where operators have subsidized phones. people talk about china mobile being a big opportunity, which it is, but china mobile customers don't get their phones subsidized, and they pay $11 a month. to address that market, they need a much cheaper phone. we're not talking about $100 or

$200. we're talking about a $300 or $250 phone, and the question is what type of margin apple can generate on that. they're generating ridiculous margins on their existing product because it's great products. but if they take a phone down to $50, you're talking about a 2,000 basis point retraction in the margin. does that imply earnings growth for 2014? i think that's uncertain, and the market is trying to figure that out right now. >> who do you want them to buy? who's the best fit? >> it depends which way you want to go. they want to be a product company. maybe they go down in the food chain and buy someone who supplies their components to make sure they get the differentiation that way. if they come out with a low priced phone and it takes margins down, and they have billions of people looking at ios products throughout the world. maybe they need to monetize that. twitter is a company that could help them monetize the fact that everyone is staring at their screens, whether it's the

iphones or ipads or computers. >> let's be honest. if apple does a deal and they buy somebody down the food chain, as you say, that's not going to wow anybody. that's not going to do anything to transform or take the company to the next level. twitter, on the other hand, would certainly be an interesting deal to take apple to that next step. you'd agree with that? >> i'd agree. >> if they're going to do a deal, they'd better do a good one. >> there are definitely some more transactions that are more interesting than others. today it's new growth. they've got to figure out something to reinvigorate earning growth. >> the wwalt, thanks. good to talk to you. apple, blackberry, who's the best smartphone player right now? you can't really buy samsung, so that doesn't count. >> i think there are a couple of things you've got to look at with what just happened, with einhorn in particular. a lot of us are going to be

judging whether there's an einhorn put, similar to a bernanke put, under the market, with the fact you've got bill miller and einhorn. einhorn has 1.3 million shares of this stock, and they're both pushing for apple to do things with that cash hoard. as karen finerman i called, and she was surprised when we learned for the first time about that proxy where they wanted to get rid of this preferred. in other words, is apple being more like microsoft? is it more like the evil empire? this is a bad pr move for apple to be going about it this way and basically back door this preferred stock so that they would not have that option going forward, so that einhorn couldn't push his case. >> because he went to apple, and he had this discussion. >> he says he had it yesterday. >> and they said no. then they come out with this. you have to wonder about that too. >> i think that tim cook next week at the goldman sachs conference that we were all talking about yesterday, knowing he's going to be speaking on the 12th, he's going to have to

address some of these issues at that conference, and that's part of that put that i believe is under the market here for apple at this level. >> what about some of the other, whether it's google or blackberry? simon? >> or nokia. the windows phone has been a massive success. they got $4 billion worth in patents. $6 billion in cash. take a look at nokia. it's very undervalued. $85 billion of that cash is offshore. if they were to bring it onshore, they've got to pay action at thatax. s we know they don't want to pay taxes. that's a huge concern too. >> coming up, find out why the risks outweigh the rewards when it comes to investing in detail. and we're trading some of the biggest movers on the day. how do traders using technical analysis streamline their process? at fidelity, we do it by merging two tools into one. combining your customized charts with leading-edge analysis tools from recognia

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welcome back. shares of boeing moving higher following the ntsb press conference on dreamliner safety. >> it's been interesting watching the boeing shares spike higher and then pull back a little bit as the ntsb press conference is taking place. bottom line is this. the ntsb determined the fire started with short circuiting in one of the cells in the lithium ion battery. what they have not determined is what caused that short circuiting. that's an important determination they need to reach at some point as they move forward with the investigation. here's the ntsb chairman within

the last hour. >> the voltage of the battery had unexpectedly dropped from a full charge of approximately 32 volts to approximately 28 volt. this drop is consistent with the charge voltage of a single cell. we believe that the evidence points to a single cell as the initiating event. >> as the ntsb chairman was giving her update on the investigation, a 787 dreamliner was in flight, going from ft. worth back to the boeing facility in everett, washington, just outside of seattle. this is a ferry flight, not a test flight, a ferry flight. boeing wanted to bring that dreamliner back to seattle. the faa granted a one-time waiver. quickly, let's look at shares of boeing. we should remind you, with regard to test flights, boeing asked the faa to lift the grounding for test flights. that request was put in on monday. they're still waiting to hear

from the faa. there's no indication the faa is going to be making that determination sometime soon. that would certainly be an event that could move the shares again. again, scott, take a look at what happened here. spiked tire at the beginning of the ntsb press conference talking about more specifics with the fire. as it became clear, they have not yet found the root cause. what actually caused a short circuit in that battery. we saw the shares pulling back a bit. that's the latest. back to you. >> it's interesting to get the traders' take. what do you do, josh, with boeing here? >> my schtick is any time there's controversy, i'm not involved. >> it raises the question. there will be others who say, you buy things like this when everybody else is fear l of. >> not yet. if that's your game, if you're like knee jerk contrarian, and any time somebody's negative, you automatically buy, that's fine. not my game. i think it's fairly early. >> that's not my game too. i like boeing. we've pulled back before. if it were to pull back in the 70s, not interested. it's had a nice rally.

your better bet is united technologies, where they get 50% of their revenues in the commercial space market and commercial construction, exposure. they just announced another buy back, huge buy back. that stock could go to 100 easily. precision parts is another play that's very interesting. >> you think about bp during the oil spill, these things take time to play out. then you're right, there comes a time when there's nothing left to sell. the worst possible move usually doesn't manifest itself, and people are rewarded. >> they're not stopping production, ands that the most important thing. that's why you want to own the suppliers because they're making their money on the out years. >> i like that call too. >> if they were to come out and say we're halting production, the stock wouldn't be sitting at $76 and change. >> somebody's defended this stock aggressively here, judge. when it got down to 73, there were nothing but buyers down

there. it's popped back up to within a buck or two of the 52 week high. there's a lot of somebodies that are aggressively defending this stock. >> let's get a market flash with josh lipton. josh, what are you watching? >> hey there, scott, on a down day. check out shares of yahoo! showing some green. yahoo! and google teaming up. google will display ads on yahoo! properties using google ad programs. the two will then share resulting ad revenue. these are two internet firms with a lot of history. last year yahoo! hired away google executive marisa meyer. and maria meyer hired a former google executive. yahoo! up 1.7%. >> scott baker, what do you do with this one? it's an interesting move from marisa meyer. >> it's an interesting one. the easy money being made in yahoo!. these strategic relations she's put together are smart. >> you're telling me you

wouldn't be a buyer of this stock here because you think the money has been nad? >> the easy money has been made. she's through her honeymoon period. let's see what she can deliver on. i wouldn't be a buyer of yahoo!. >> retailers topping same store sales estimates for january bedib despite consumers being faced with higher payroll taxes. macy's and gap among the winners. stacy, what were you most impressed with? >> we've been playing the off price retailers. i think you have head winds with the consumer in general just given the payroll tax expiration. tjx is one we got involved in. they had a good number. they raised guidance. roar stores, we liked it higher, we liked it lower. that's a space where you're a little more protected. consumers are always looking for a bargain, and these guys have great quality on sale. >> let's bring in kimberly at morgan stanley. what's your read on the same

store sales? >> really strong january results across the board. department stores led the way. also some good results among the specialty apparel retailers. what we're hearing, however, is that it was very strong early in the month of january. with the calendar shift and new year's day moving to a tuesday, a significant surge in mall traffic early in the month waned later in the month, and it was really sort of clearance driven and calendar shift driven in terms of the strength. we're not convinced it's going to last. >> you really think this payroll tax hike is going to have a profound effect on retail sales. >> we do. the payroll tax increase is probably the most significant tax increase of all of the increases coming through here in 2013. it negatively impacts disposable income growth, and there's about an 85% correlation between income growth and spending. we think that spending will be pressured throughout the year. we do like the trade down in

terms of some of the value oriented retailers catching the share. and we like them positioned more at the high end because we think the consumer is going to be more insulated. >> you have michael coors on your list. that story has read well since that company went public. and from ralph's results earlier in the week that the high end is holding up. and maybe the negative from coach and tiffany. >> we're very constructive on michael kors going into earnings next week. very strong sales results there. the handbag category has been pretty good. but up and comers, including michael kors eating away at coach's market share. tiffany's got some challenges just in the jewelry category, which has been one of the most inflation impacted categories here over the last few years. and the jewelry sort of value

proposition doesn't resonate as much as other categories. >> is there an area within retail that you think is a beneficiary of yet another year of, let's say, 1.5%, 2% gdp growth. are we still going to have good performance from names like target and some of the dollars stores, walmart, et cetera? or has that trade now exhausted themselves because they're not cheap. they've kind of priced that in. >> we think the more likely beneficiary would be the retailers in the apparel market at the lower end because you're likely to see consumers continue to trade into value in the apparel category. >> what is that, gap or aeropostale? >> that would include the off price retailers tj maxx and ross where you can get great brands at a great price. and would include macy's where you've got a portfolio of great

brands and great prices. >> what's a good retail trade right here? >> i don't like the special realty space at all. >> none of it? >> not really. i like the consumer discretionary, like i talked beforement the home depots, the lowe's,s disneys. i don't like that space. i think that trade is over. >> is it over? the tj maxx, is that trade done? >> no. like i said before, if you do have push back with the consumer and they have a tough time this year, they're going to go and look for discounts. these guys over 30% to 60% discounts for name brands. and also, actually, tj hasn't done anything since july. we sold it at the same price we bought it back at. i like the underperformance. >> after being such a steady eddie performer. >> so it's taking a breather. that's fine by me. i still see upside. and ross stores and tj raised numbers. >> scott bought great shoes from tj maxx. >> and i could probably find one of those tie bars too. let's look at pops and drops.

>> cbr group popping 8%. >> they beat the street by 6 cents. 20% jump year over year. looks like the commercial real estate business is coming back. albeit much slower than we've seen with residential, but one of the few pure plays to capture the brokerage side of that. >> o'reilly automotive. >> anything auto. that's been such a great theme. this company just totally blew it away in terms of earnings, sales, margins, guidance across the board. and accelerated. >> allstate, simon, popping 1%. >> i wanted to use my allstate voice, but i can't quite get it. allstate beat earnings of revenue. >> dennis hays berg, you're not. >> i can try to do it with an english accent. >> we'll get to that later. >> buy it. we like it. >> akamai dropping big. >> dropping big. they miss on revenue pretty big. they break through the 50-day,

200-day moving averages. and broke through a low, trading down to 33.5 today. i think you get a chance to reload, but that three-day rule, wait. >> and the pop for the australians. empire state building may be an american landmark, but australian runners reached the top first during wednesday's vertical marathon. mark bourne and susie walsh, both aussies, were the fastest man and woman to climb the skyscrapers 1,576 steps with bourne finishing in 10:12. the speedy stair climber averaged about 2 1/2 steps per second. impressive. coming up on the half, the one big pharma stock a wall street firm says you should sell right now. we're going to reveal it in our top three trades. the stock selloff today, is gold the best place to hide? we're going to break that down.

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welcome back to fast money halftime report. wild day for gold. jack yes deangelis is the host of cnbc.com's futures now. what are you looking at? >> comments out of ecb president mario draghi sparking a big move in the euro and in stocks. that gave a big boost to gold, but gold giving back some of those gains. how should you play it right now? let's talk futures now. jim at the cme in chicago. anthony at the nymex in new york. what are traders saying about the pits in gold today? >> quite a roller coaster ride.

the ecb gave out two signals here. number one, it strengthened our dollar, which made gold weak. then when they said they might lower interest rates again, that actually put a base in gold. and when our acceleration of the equity selloffs started happening, we really found a base in gold and started rallying from there. investors looking for a place to put their money. >> jim, you say the price action in gold is setting up for a big move higher. explain why. >> it's setting up for a big move, and i think that move is going to be higher because i think it's a much bigger, deeper, and rich story than rich makes out. it starts with the fact that the yen has been pummeled over the last couple of months. yesterday the aussie gets hit because of a policy shift by the royal bank of australia. i think it's a little mistrust of fiat currencies. for a temporary time, it was like i don't care if the dollar is rallying. i want to get into gold because of currency weakness. that could continue. the signal, if gold goes above 1682.85, it will be a signal it's going higher.

it will be a shift for gold to rally the way the dollar is. >> it could potentially see a breakout. now you know how our guys are playing gold. question is what about you? log on to cnbc.com and take our poll and see if you're buying or selling bullion. we're going to be joined by the ceo of silver wheaton. randy smallwood, his company made a $2 billion bet on gold. we'll find out why. >> coming up on the half, a big bond fund manager is negative on the bond market. we'll ask loomis sales dan fuss why he thinks a day of reckoning may be coming for fixed income investors. what that could mean for the stock market as well. and later, will linked in surprise this quarter.

we're halfway through the trading day. next, citigroup, salesforce, sodastream. what are we covering? google, gold, green mountain. we want to hear from you. tweet, and the judge will give your stocks to the jury. ♪ [ cows moo ] [ sizzling ] more rain... [ thunder rumbles ] ♪ [ male announcer ] when the world moves... futures move first. learn futures from experienced pros with dedicated chats and daily live webinars. and trade with papermoney to test-drive the market. ♪ all on thinkorswim. from td ameritrade.

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welcome back to the halftime show. sha schwab getting a lift today. bob, getting a nice pob. >> the etf price wars continuing to heat up. schwab announcing a broad free etf trading platform. another sign the etf price wars are continuing, this time with brokerage fees. schwab announced the 50 etf funds it owns along with 90 non-schwab etf funds would be commission free on its one source trading platform. they're not the first to do this. fidelity offers i-shares free on its platform. and vanguard has commission free etfs on its own platform l sw. schwab is likely the broadest

announcement yet of free commissions. schwab was late to this etf party. vanguard got in early and collected a lot of assets. schwab has come out swinging with a series of low cost etfs. besides commissions, a separate war being waged around expense ratios. they're also dropping. schwab charges only .04% for its broad market etf. that's 40 cents on $1,000. that's peanuts. the biggest etf, the i-shares s&p 500 charges .9%. a lot charges 1%. these are gathering morassettes at the expense of the mutual fund business. $1.4 trillion is now under management, scott, growing 25% a year for these etfs. i'm going to be at the index universe etf conference next week. it's the biggest one. we'll have more news. and this year one etf provider at least will announce a major deal with a 401(k) platform.

that would be the big break-in for the etf industry. that's what they've been waiting for for years. >> it seems that's where the evolution is going to go next. a nice lift for schwab shares off of that today, about 1%. a warning for bond investor frs someone who manages $21 billion in fixed income. dan fuss, vice chairman and portfolio manager at loomis sales joins us now. dan, welcome to halftime. nice to see you. >> thank you. good to be here, scott. >> we have a bubble in the bond market. >> no. bonds really don't bubble, but they do get pricey. and there is -- it's not semantics. there are differences. but net net, it does look like the odds of interest rates being higher in the future than they are today have gone up quite a bit. it's already time now to take action because actually it's technically started.

it's been going torefor a littl while. >> is 2% on the ten-year, the yield, is that the tipping point, the beginning of getting people to move en masse away from bonds and stocks like a lot of people are looking for? >> i don't know. when you look back over the last few months, you'll notice, just look at the recent prices on the issues that came, the new treasury issues that came in november. the ten-year is about $3 below the offer price, 3%. the long bond is about $8, 8% below the offer price. and there was that low in and around 145, 150, and now we're in the 2 trading range. but it's still a trading range

that could adjust up or adjust down a bit. we've moved off a very low, artificially low, due to our own central bank, interest rate. and the if, big if, the economy continues to slowly progress, then you could expect interest rates to slowly go up. how far? i don't know. how long? i would guess, oh, probably a couple of decades with cycles in between. >> dan, it's josh brown. i'm just curious. there's been a major selloff over the last, let's say, eight or nine days in investment grade corporate bonds, u.s., and obviously junk right alongside of that. it's gotten the attention of equity guys. so it's certainly something that's note anl. what do you make of that? how should we think of that? is that really chicken equity people just switching sides or not necessarily? >> well, i wish i knew. it's easiest to track with the mutual fund flows and day to day

with the etf flows. you can see the money going from bonds, particularly high yield, towards stocks. there can be day to day blips in that, and it's hard to draw trend lines with etfs because so many people, apart from your normal etf buyers, use them now to adjust their positions. >> right. >> and that makes it tricky. if this guess about the future is anywhere close to right, you take precautions now. you adjust the bond portfolio. it's not the end of the world for bonds. if you're in a 30-year treasury at zero, yes, it is. but you can adjust to deal with the first cycle of this quite well. it's not a biggy. the second cycle, now at that point, out five years or so, then you're talking about more serious stuff.

but there are things you can do now to take advantage of it and up to some point be happy and say, gee, i'm glad this happened. >> dave, thanks for spending time with us. appreciate it. >> you bet. thank you. >> dan fuss. coming up on the half, is the european contagion hitting u.s. stocks? [ male announcer ] here's a word that could give you peace of mind. unbiased. some brokerage firms are. but way too many aren't. some of the ones that push mutual funds with their names on them -- aren't. why? because selling their funds makes them more money. which makes you wonder -- isn't that a conflict? am i in the best fund for me, or them? search "proprietary mutual funds". yikes, it's best for them. then go to e-trade. we've got over 8,000 mutual funds and not one of them has our name on it. why? because that's not the business we're in.

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the hour of power begins in about 15 minutes. on the big program, a lot of talk about unlocking apple's value. one company hoping to tap into apple's value is logitech. that company's ceo will lay out his do or die plan, his words, for the company. and powerhouse. we're traveling to the top 20 housing markets in america. you know the story. today we're going to visit denver and show you what your money buys you there. it is a very healthy market with very low property taxes, by the way. and the northeast bracing for a major winter storm. two feet expected in some areas. we're going to track its path for you. now back to scott and the fast half crew. >> thanks so much. see you at the top of the hour. new warnings from ecb president mario draghi weighing on the euro today and hitting u.s. stocks as well with the news and the euro's run. let's get the trade from scott gordon. just when you thought the euro

was going to the moon. >> i think it's in the charts. the s&p is tracking the dax pretty well. just notice in the last week or so you start to see the dax kind of diverge, and that euro strength that daghi was talking about is really starting to take impact on the dax, which has been the upside leader. that's starting to precipitate a little risk. >> why has the euro remained as strong as it has? >> when the sovereign debt crisis hits, and the market is supposed to see 115 get down to fair value and it doesn't, there's an underlying strength. they've really stabilized against the german bunde, and that's okay for now. now they're really concerned. the exporters are concerned that's going to head off the stock rally. >> what's the trade then sth >> i want to get short euro right now. there was a nice technical break around 1.34.80. that was the march high. it was supposed to hold a technical support. couldn't hold. i'd like to get short back to this level.

24.20 34.20 to go short. there's an upgrand that going to hold profit at the euro. take profit at 1.32. >> obviously, some people want draghi to cut rates in part to weaken the currency. now maybe he won't have to if merely talking it down. >> exactly right. he hinted towards that in today's speech. that euro weakness is starting to precipitate not inflation, but deflation. that would take care of any interest rate policy. >> good to see you. of course, you can catch more currency trading tomorrow and every friday night. money in motion only here on cnbc. coming up at the half, you tweet it, we trade it. we have four plays on four stocks, so you can make your next move.

linked in, one of the hottest social media stocks, reporting earnings overnight. should you buy? ahead of those numbers. josh the bull. simon the bear. time is on the clock. josh, you're first. >> why would you want to bet against the company that's literally on a rampage, a financial rampage is the way it's been phrased. every quarter since they've become public, they've beaten earnings, and they'll report tonight, flip a coin as to which way the stock goes in the next day. this is a company that's really challenging facebook for having what i would consider the most defensible social network. they're huge and getting bigger. >> simon, do they have their you

know what together? >> they make money. >> my invite never got replied. are you even a linked in member? >> i don't need to be on there. >> the stock is up 10% already. it's a good stock, but it's fairly valued out there. there's competition coming in. you look at facebook. josh, you've had your moment there. >> not an argument. >> the membership growth is -- look, they're coming out with earnings today. it's got massive expectations on it. it's a good internet stock, but there's other places to put your money in terms of valuation. in terms of a premium, 27% premium you're paying over amazon. this thing is bloody expensive. >> it's been expensive since it came public, and the stock is doubled, tripled. all i want to talk about on linked in is what the next two to three years are. i can't tell you it's the cheapest it will ever be today. what i can tell you is it looks like it wants 150 technically. no flies on the story. by the way, this is not just a u.s. story. very important. 70% of their new member growth

in the last quarter came from overseas. >> josh, it's expensive. it buying stocks and trading. >> this is the internet sector. can't talk about value in this sector. >> let's join on linked in and carry on the conversation. >> no, no. >> all right. the gavel comes down. doc, who made the more compelling argument? >> i'll tell you what the options players are saying right now. i think that was a decent argument, you guys. >> that sounds like a cop-out. >> it's a huge cop-out, but they're selling the 130s, 135s, and 140 calls. nobody thinks it's going up more than $7 from the 123 it's already at. >> let's get to kate kelly who has news on s.e.c. >> there's been a lot of speculation going into the redemption deadline for sac capital as to whether they're going to lose capital from the ongoing legal issues they're facing. but from my understanding, there's no way they're going to lose more than $1 billion and

considerably less. one is their gating policy. they will not let investors take out more than 25% of their total assets invested per quarter. even if you wanted to take out all of your money from sac starting now, you could only get a quarter of it. secondly, most of their investors won't pull capital. they're quite loyal. they think sac is doing a great job. pretty decent january, up 2 it.5%. not as good as other short term money managers but not bad. let's take a listen to one fellow i talked to who's very loyal and actually wants to add money. >> i remain loyal to them and will continue to remain loyal to them because there's nothing that i've seen that would challenge that. quite frankly, i believe they're the best in the business. stevie cohen is the michael jordan of hedge fund managers. >> there you have it, the michael jordan of hedge fund managers. lots of legal headwinds to come. a lot of legal allegations in this martoma case which personally implicated stevie cohen. >> can we put to rest -- because

we haven't heard about it -- that cohen would think about retiring or leaving or anything like that. is it he in it for the long haul? >> i haul now? >> in his own words to vanity fair, he said, he has a back injury. he's tired. he has other things, including a large family and an art collection and other interests. no doubt he is a great money manager. his performance even during the series of legal battles has been outstanding but everybody has their limitations. and i don't know if i see him hanging in there as long as you see other money managers doing it. >> kate, thanks as always. kate kelly. we have trade on three stocks that lit up my twitter feed. first up, key corp, stephanie, what's the trade? >> i like the stock. i with like it lower. they are lowering costs and they have a very good quarter. so they are doing all the right things. i think they will easily pass the stress test. you want it hold it if you own it and if it falls to nine

below, you buy it. >> interest margin? >> interest margin. >> just making sure. what's the trade on texan? >> texan keeps getting up against 34, which is a 52-week high then pulls back from there. i don't have a catalyst to be long the stock up here. especially with competitors in the space giving background. i think you let texas come back to you around 32 to 35. >> target, jb? >> yeah. i have been in it since high 50s and i would stick with it. i like the aggressive push into canada and i think they have been running circles around wal-mart and different ways and you know the stock looks like she wants it continue higher so i would stick with it. >> okay, final trades after this short break. with the fidelity guided portfolio summary, you choose which accounts to track and use fidelity's analytics to spot trends, gain insights, and figure out what you want to do next. all in one place.

i'm meredith stoddard and i helped create the fidelity guided portfolio summary. it's one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. come on, nowadays lots of people go by themselves.

no they don't. hey son. have fun tonight. he ♪ ♪ back against the wall ♪ ain't nothin to me ♪ ain't nothin to me [ crowd murmurs ] hey! ♪ [ howls ] ♪ . stephanie, kick us off with final trades. >> yeah, i will buy yum brand. if you have time, six months or longer, i think this thing plays out. i don't think their chicken

franchise goes down and they are doing a good job in the u.s. and other international markets. >> the good doctor. >> i'm going with national oilwell varco. >> simon baker? >> a trade coach at 2.5% yield. disappointed with a nice little kick. >> wow, i'm surprised to hear you go that way. jb? >> not johnson and johnson. somebody wants in so i would take this opportunity if they are not already long p. i like the name. >> all right, "power" starts now. >> "halftime" is over. "power lunch" and second half of the trading day starts right now. >> scott, thank you very much. stroks struggling. a sizeable sell-off as you see there. nasdaq down half percent of the industrials off two thirds and s&p 45u7 struggling to stay above 1500. fears about europe and the weak

productivity data here at home bringing out the bears are bigger, declines on the way. hedge fund titan david einhorn suing apple. suing apple now to unlock the company's value. we will discuss what the tech giant should do with $140 billion cash horde problem. we should all have such problems. >> there you see it. big storm bearing down on the east. east bracing for a massive nor'easter. up to two feet expected in some areas. look at that. massachusetts, rhode island and so -- just give me the opportunity to be a weather man. i always wanted to do that. we will have the latest and tell you what it means for your travel planes. hey, sue. >> hi, ty. we have a sell off in markets. we are off of our lows of the trading session but still down 93 point on the do you jones industrial after 13,893 and change. nasdaq is down about 18 points,

half a percent. s&p 500 just giving that 1500 level. we are down about 8.5 points on the trading session. bob pisani is on the the floor of the -- you know where we are. the nyse. that's down that away. >> what's up, bob? >> the important thing today is we had a weird open. then it was sort of like, everybody decided to sell right at open. even europe came in, was lousy. we went straight down and we have been sort of side ways. we have been off of the lows. a lot of concerns go back to europe. mario is talking somewhat devilishly. and i think 24 is the concern about the weakness of the stocks, that is continuing to indicate further weakness of q4 and early 2013. draghi saying, if euro strength continue and starts it hurt growth, they would continue

acting. sue, i was asked about the reretail stocks. they were weak early on and generally a good retail report. i think the concern here is that february, a great report raising guidance. i think february, new merchandise coming in. not the old christmas stuff they are selling off might be tougher 20 get rid of that new merchandise. >> okay. stay with us, bob. earlier today, i'm sure you all saw this. former treasury secretary robert rubin made a rare tv appearance on squawk box. he is not happy about the legislation due to go into effect march 1st if an agreement can't be reached. >> it is a terrible piece of legislation. cuts defense and nondefense without trying to thoughtfully do so. instead of being phased in so we have more room for recovery, it hits abruptly. and it is far, far from clear that if it huts in place, it'll stick. so it is a terrible piece of legislation. >> well,